Six Months Later

We've been farming for 6 months now! I can't even put into words how much we've both learned. I think that going into this with no experience has been one of the best things about it. We've made some mistakes, but without experience we had no expectations and we were able to jump into it without the pressure of knowing how things should be.

We went from never having even touched a chicken to owning over 20 of them, building coops and runs, eating and selling eggs, slaughtering chickens ourselves and hatching a chick from our own stock (Squishy did most of that).

The chicks in April - too scared to walk around on grass for the first time.

The chickens now - too spoiled to want to walk around on grass in the rain.

We went from never having grown anything to growing a greenhouse full of organic vegetables and eating, storing and selling them.

Little basil seedling in April.

The herb garden now...

We went from never having owned livestock to owning sheep, goats and a llama - and building fencing, gates, shelters, stalls and a barn.

April - just the horses and cows on the leased paddock here.

Now: Goats and sheep enjoying the grass - Thomas and Zeb were just off to the left behind that gate.

We went from knowing nothing but the definition of "aquaponics" to setting up a fully functioning system complete with Tilapia and a bunch of vegetables (Nathan gets full credit for this one). 

Aquaponics system at the beginning:

Grow bed #3 last month - I'll have to take an updated photo. Nathan also just finished building a compost pile next to it (with polypipe running through it) to hopefully heat the water over winter.

We went from never having bees to....having a hive ready and still never having bees. Oh well. It may have been a little bit much to handle in the first 6 months, anyway. We got a ton of wasps, instead. 

I leave you with...Flying Goat!

Expansion

We spent a lot of the weekend working on a new winter sheep/llama barn with our landlord. I've never built anything like this so it was pretty cool to start from scratch and end up with the framework for walls and a roof. Eventually we'll make some stalls on one side and a small area for hay on the other, and maybe some shelves on the top for storage. The back will be open and the front will have a door. There should be plenty of room for Zeb, Thomas the the girls in there.

Look what Nathan found! Hidden nest #2.

You may not want to look at the following picture while eating...

Speckles' foot was still swollen and seemed to be getting worse instead of better. I did some more bumblefoot reading and the consensus was that there is almost always a large, fairly solid mass in the foot that needs to be dug out. When we did the surgery before, I didn't cut very deep into her foot because I got scared. This time, I took my trusty scalpel and a whole bunch of resolve and made a deep cut into her foot while holding it under running water so I could see what I was doing. 

Ta Dah! I got a lump the size of a pencil eraser out of her foot. She's already walking around much better and the swelling has gone way down.

This photo is horrible, but Zebra Head made it onto the roost for the first time the other night! Normally he sleeps on the ground with two of his chubbier lady friends. They probably should have decided to sleep on the roost again last night instead of on the porch to their little house...

When we went to lock the chickens in for the night, I had Lexie on leash. She had thrown up her dinner and was lethargic (she's fine now) and just trotting along next to me instead of on high alert like she usually is...so I wasn't paying as much attention to her as I should have been. When I leaned into the coop to check the water container, she lunged from behind me (still on a very short leash, luckily) and grabbed Raven right off the porch. I screamed for Nathan while trying to open Lexie's mouth - it was dark and I had no idea how much of the chicken she had. Chickens apparently (strangely) stay in their trance-like night state even when in the mouth of a dog. We finally got Raven loose and we were very very lucky - Lexie had only grabbed a mouthful of tail feathers and there is no damage. Lesson learned - never get complacent with dogs and chickens!

We've been getting so much produce out of our garden. I think it's time to preserve some instead of just selling and eating it. 

All of those tomato flowers really did produce tomatoes.

Red peppers! My favourite veggie of all.

Basil this morning

Basil after trimming...can't even tell. Grasshoppers have been devouring it but luckily they haven't made much of a dent.

The herb garden isn't exactly neat and tidy anymore...and there's that giant zucchini taking over in the back.

Speaking of zucchini, make this. Or don't...because you'll eat the whole thing within a day of it coming out of the oven, and you'll tell yourself it's ok because it has vegetables in it.

http://therecipecritic.com/2013/08/chocolate-zucchini-bread/

Over-ripe and not quite ripe cantaloupe in their nets.

Pumpkins starting to ripen.

These "Thai Dragon" chillies are so good and hot! Three plants and we'll have more than enough to cook with for a year.

Spaghetti squash using tomato plants as their trellis.

Giant kale and normal kale. Or maybe normal kale and stunted kale. Either way, we still have massaged kale salad almost every night with dinner and we aren't sick of it yet.

Fall veggies planted in the grow bed. Lacinato kale, broccoli, cabbage, peas.

The greenhouse in June:

The greenhouse now:

The Debut

Yesterday the farm front stall made its first appearance. 

We have had a grand total of...0 customers. I've seen at least 3 people stop and look and not buy anything. I'm thinking that it will be more popular when we have more than lettuce and herbs available (hopefully!). 

I pulled up the first carrots yesterday. The one in the middle must have hit a rock while growing. They were delicious!

Mmm more basil for pesto - this time it went on a pizza with zucchini, radish, onion, garlic and sundried tomatoes. It was one of our best yet!

The name "Sweet Million" isn't much of an exaggeration for these tomato plants. They are *covered* in vines of growing tomatoes. 

The lettuce (romaine and manoa) that I harvested for the stand yesterday. It's hard to keep it from wilting. I put it and the kale on damp towels on the stand and I stood the bunches of herbs up in some water. That seems to keep it pretty fresh. 

Nathan got some red wriggler worms to add to the aquaponics system. They help to break down the fish waste for the plants. He put them in the grow beds and they tunneled right down into the media. 

Our landlord is digging a trench to lay irrigation pipe from the rainwater pond by the greenhouse to the orchard. Nathan had a small work team of 3 to help him dig.

All of the dogs had had a pre-weekend bath. Back to farm life...